Build marriage on love

 MARRIAGE must be built on the rock of love not the shifting sands of emotions, Pope Francis told 10,000 engaged couples.

Greeting them at a special audience in St Peter’s Square last week, Pope Francis listened to questions from different couples and answered them in turn.

Pope Francis told young people: “It is important to ask ourselves if it is possible to love one another forever. Today many people are afraid of making definitive decisions that affect them for all their lives, because it seems impossible. And this mentality leads many who are preparing for marriage to say: ‘We will stay together for as long as our love lasts.’

“But what do we mean by love? A mere emotion, a psycho-physical state?

“Certainly if it is just this, it cannot provide the foundation for building something solid. 

“But if instead love is a relationship, then it is a growing reality, and we can also say, by way of example, that it is built in the same way that we build a house. And we build a house together, not alone.

“You would not wish to build it on the shifting sands of emotions, but on the rock of true love, the love that comes from God.

“The family is born of this project of love that wishes to grow, as one builds a house that becomes the focus of affection, help, hope and support. 

“Just as God’s love is stable and lasts forever, we want the love on which a family is based to be stable and to last forever. We must not allow ourselves to be conquered by a throw-away culture.”